Huawei unveils next-gen crazy fast Kirin 960 chipset

At a press conference in Shanghai yesterday, Huawei took the wraps off its latest HiSilicon Kirin 960 chip-set which is expected to be featured in its next flagship device due to be announced in November.

This new superchip uses four high performance ARM Cortex A73 cores and four low power Cortex A53 cores. The Kirin 960 is built using a 16nm manufacturing process and is the first processor to employ the use of the new Mali-G71 MP8 GPU for improved graphics and gaming performance.

At the media event, a phone with the chip was benchmark tested against the likes of an iPhone 7 and a Samsung Galaxy Note 7, as reported by Android Central. The test showed the phone launching 14 of the most popular apps in China, and it demonstrated how it pulled ahead of the competition 13 times out the 14 tries.

While Huawei maintained that Apple is still better at its single core performance, they were unmatched when it came to the multi core performance tests. Huawei also says that the new chip allows the phone to feel faster thanks to the new GPU and faster read and write times.

Additionally, the Kirin 960 adds CDMA support, increasing its market reach for areas that support its use. It also adds one more component carrier(4CC) as compared to its competitors(3CC). Additional LTE channels and radio frequencies have also been added increasing the range and performance capabilities of the new processor.

The Kirin 960 processor brings a new Image Signaling Processor (ISP) as well, which demonstrates advancements in its cameras capabilities, which also obviously depends on the optics used in a smartphone in the first place. The processor allows for a wider range of refocusing options over their previous generation chips and is supposed to bring smartphone cameras “closer to the vision of the human eye” as it creates clearer images with improvements in fine detail reproduction.

In terms of battery life, Pokemon Go was used as an example. Huawei says that with the new chip, gamers can expect to catch Pokemon for 1.2 days as opposed to half a day. Security measures have also been beefed up and the chip has been certified by a few banking partners to be eligible for mobile payments. It apparently comes with over 1000 anti-hacking sensors, and a 3-tier security system with additional support for the standard encryption techniques used by the finance world.

Stay tuned for November 3rd when Huawei is expected to announce their upcoming Mate 9, which will also likely feature the new Kirin 960 chip and the popular dual lens camera setup found on the Huawei P9.